Today's findings offer the first pieces of evidence after decades of suspicions that the vast majority of children who died at the home had been buried on the site in unmarked graves during the period of high child mortality rates across Ireland.

The probe was launched in 2014 after local historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who had died as residents of the facility.

However she could find only one child's burial record.

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The probe was first launched in 2014, but the scale of the mass graves have only been revealed today

The investigators, who are examining the treatment of children at a long-closed network of 14 Mother and Baby Homes, said they still were trying to identify "who was responsible for the disposal of human remains in this way".

The Bon Secours Sisters order of nuns, which ran the home until its closure, said in a statement that all its records, including of potential burials, had been handed to state authorities in 1961. It pledged to cooperate with the continuing investigation.

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